New kid on the block, Aurora Capital, has launched a range of KiwiSaver funds specifically centred around combating climate change. Falling under the Aurora Financial umbrella, Aurora Capital’s first offering to the market closely aligns with its goal of providing forward-looking investments powered by modern technology.

“We believe that we offer the most progressive funds in the market at the moment, as they focus on tackling climate change at a grassroots level,” explains Aurora Capital CEO, Simon Rolland. “We’re choosing to actively invest in areas, technologies and industries that need these funds to make real changes in reducing their environmental impact. Where others avoid, we’re choosing to go head-on.”

The demand for responsible investments is certainly growing and Aurora Capital are positioning themselves perfectly to service these ethical investors. The recent KiwiSaver Annual Report from the FMA reveals a massive 56% growth in “socially responsible” fund membership.

From the onset, it became apparent that technology would be central to support their goal of making the KiwiSaver Scheme a success. Aurora partnered with Auckland-based fintech company Invsta, to develop an engaging and easy-to-use digital onboarding platform and customer portal that would meet the demands of today’s digitally-savvy investors.

“The brief was to provide an engaging digital solution through which KiwiSaver members could interact and manage their investments. It also had to reflect and incorporate Aurora’s core values and goals of education, empowerment, communication and authenticity,” explains Rachel Strevens, CEO of Invsta.

With the underlying modules and functionality already built out, Invsta’s white-label KiwiSaver solution was ideally suited to meet those requirements. Not only did it offer the level of customisation that Aurora was looking for, but the API-driven modules were crucial to help meet tight implementation deadlines, and to enable easy integration with other third-party providers. Aurora’s unique workflows, branding, and design elements were then layered over the underlying modules, to provide the required customisation.

Strevens explains that an important step in the implementation process is to dive deep to understand each customer’s unique brand, purpose, and vision. This enables the user experience (UX) team to create seamless, customer-centric digital experiences that echo that of the rest of the business. “From overall design, background images, button layouts and graph designs through to workflows, compliance processes and data capturing, we were able to customise each module for Aurora in a fraction of the time that it would have taken them to do a custom build.”

Rolland adds that the technology will help bring advisors and investors closer together through improved visibility. “Two of our core values as a business are empowerment and trust. Invsta has really helped us to align to those values by creating an engaging digital platform that improves accessibility and transparency for our clients. It really helps us to engage with our clients in a way that gives them the power to control their investments, and to ultimately control their outcomes.”

It also feeds into their wider strategy of expanding their market reach and servicing customers that find advice difficult to access. Advisor-driven Aurora Financial are capitalising on the efficiency benefits that the new KiwiSaver platform will bring. With built-in digital communication tools and dashboards, the customer portal is designed to better inform and educate investors.

Rolland adds that this portal has fast-tracked their ambitious digital roadmap. “About 3 to 4 years ago we made a target to be 99% digital by the year 2022, with that 1% still reserved for that important human direct interaction. We’re well on our way to achieving that goal, and we look forward to working with Invsta in the future to bring through additional features and functionality.”

Frankie Roberts

Frankie Roberts